Surplus market blues

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Well they seemed like a good idea at the time

These relays contain a diode in series with the 12 volt DC coil.

No, not in parallel (used to stop back emf from shooting out transistors driving the relay coil) — series.

Connect the coil up backwards and nothing happens.

I have never seen this configuration before and no, of course I didn’t notice it *after* wiring four of them backwards then wondering why all four appeared bad.

If the issue had been parallel diodes, my current limited bench supply would have just gone into constant current foldback at like .6 volt and 200mA and thus alerted me to the problem… But it couldn’t be that easy now could it?

Are we the next Flint?

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It won’t be quite that bad… But we may be facing a serious water supply issue here in South Florida before long.

Currently, the water level in Lake Okeechobee has been raised artificially one inch by backpumping heavily polluted farm runoff into it. This has caused algal and bacterial blooms, and residents living near flood gates where the water churns through and gets thrown into droplets are getting sick from the fumes. The South Florida Water Management District is getting ready to release this water at high velocity down canals to protect the heavily degraded Herbert Hoover Dike around the lake.

Oops.

So, anyone else remember a few years back when a severe drought left water intakes in the lake exposed and sucking air, and those intakes were revealed to be the water source for some urban areas in Palm Beach County?

Also, anyone else remember the fact that there is a big unexplained cancer cluster in The Acreage, in western Palm Beach County?

Gee. I wonder.

While we aren’t exactly going to be seeing residents outright acutely poisoned by their water, we’re not in great shape.

The blame can be very squarely placed upon the sugar farming industry and the Florida state government for prioritizing their sweet, sweet sugar money over the safety and well-being of the state’s residents.

What a mess. Don’t forget to flush.

toilet

RF safety? What’s that? WMBM-AM’s tower.

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No no of course not, you can’t burn things with RF unless they’re inside the microwave.

Presenting WMBM-AM, Miami Beach, Florida.

The tower stands in a courtyard behind Radio Bar. The courtyard is fully enclosed. Except…….. The bar uses it as an entrance and exit and storage area and leaves it open to the public.

Sorry for blur in these images, I was unable to stop laughing.

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Pretty hallway.

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To the right just inside.

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To the left just inside.

Note that this tower is not on insulators. It is [barely – see below] grounded. The transmitter output goes to a three wire skirt that starts well up out of reach and is fed by, uh, let’s visit that later

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Kinda sorta ground. One small wire, about 6 gauge.

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See that red square? That’s the transmitter output. Right there. It’s like seven feet up in that corner. You can see the two pipes in the photo above. Only a chain and defaced warning sign (not even a standard RF exposure warning sign) separate bar guests and that.

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Possibly remains of an older feed to the tower…. even more exposed.

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No, the tower lights don’t work.

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Dafuq?!

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This has apparently been how it’s stood for years.

On a side note, here’s an at&t installation. The old vault is on a berm above ground to protect it from storm surge. The VRAD, used to supply PooVerse I mean UVerse television, internet, and kind of sort of phone, not so much.

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You’re, uh, welcome.

R7B in the wild

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Well look what the 1980s dragged in.

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It’s the working zombie remains of a Ryko R7B car wash.

It’s in service but I wouldn’t use it! The brushes are toast. If they lose too many filaments, the hard plastic c-channel strips and the metal rollers themselves will hit the car spinning. No thanks, my paint is already Hialeah enough as it is.

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I used to want to dye my hair this color, but I feared bleach damage would leave it looking exactly like this in the end.

Note: the fact that I’m posting this does not constitute any invitation to harass me for further information. It’s at 123 street and West Dixie in North Miami; use at your own risk. I won’t. It’s just too far gone. You know who you are, wankers.

Das Choo Choo

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If it ain’t broke, and it’s positively hilarious—

It’s perfect. Don’t “Fix” it.

These videos are of a German “Taurus” locomotive– Siemens EuroSprinter ES 64.

Video of a startup sequence, from onboard – Note that the HMI unit on the dash runs what appears to be Windows 3.x (and starts it DAMN FAST)…

It also, uhhh, does silly things in addition to calling out voice prompts and displaying performance info to the operator…

WARNING: LOUD tone at 35 sec.

 

The musical silliness does not end there. In fact… the PWM converters used to control the motor speed are not fixed frequency, and they play a rising musical scale upon the train’s departure.

 

Oh, and the best part? As hilarious as this thing is— IT HELD SPEED RECORDS!

 

Of course, the French were not to be outdone, and promptly whupped ’em. Not that the Taurus minds, though. It still lives in pride.

Behringer – More like MEEEHHHringer amirite?

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Due to the fact that this thing is colossal shit and I feel bad for even recommending its purchase, I am going to classify this as 100% PURE SHITPOST. I feel genuinely bad. The thing does actually work…. SOMEHOW… though the VU meters don’t. Only the first four lights will illuminate. Gee I wonder why? (The fake STMicro chips are the drivers.)

I’d been warned many times that Behringer products are of quite subpar quality, and this had always been my impression as well, but I’d never actually opened one up and seen the horror within. This is FRESH FROM THE FACTORY and it’s got blobs of corroded crap inside. ARGH!! At least… whatever was splodged on the board and initiated said corrosion rinsed away with CRC QD Electronics Cleaner…

Rainbow Entanglement

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Help! I’m being attacked by rainbow ribbon cable!

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So, you may have seen this stuff before and wondered what’s up with the colors. Well, here you go:

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It’s standard electronics color code and the repeating stripe pattern matches the pin number of the connector at the other end. Brown 1, red 2…… It recycles after 10 (0, black).

Great stuff really. Now, where’d I put my cutters?